Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Banfield have had the benefit of it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Banfield have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Joaquín González has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Tomás Adoryan was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Joaquín González will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Banfield the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad18 Dec 2028
Tiago Peñalba falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The words a physio says slowly. 71 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Estudiantes paid $1.2M and Banfield took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Bruno Sepúlveda was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The name of Thiago Sabella has come up in conversations Banfield were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Words at Banfield training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santiago López García is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The words a physio says slowly. 62 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Dylan Gissi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Words at Nueva Chicago training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Ambrogio is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Nueva Chicago will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
51 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Nueva Chicago lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.